Tag Archives: Denver Post

Hurricane hype has reached as far inland as Colorado, where the Denver Post ran a story that essentially blames Hurricane Irma on the Florida governor because he hasn’t done enough to battle the future possible maybe impacts of climate change.

The governor is a Republican, we are informed by the fifth word in the story.

Local officials, academics and even some political allies say Scott has scarcely acknowledged the problem and, along with the Republican-led legislature, has shown little interest in funding projects to help the state adapt and become more resilient in the face of storms such as Irma.

So if Republicans just admit that climate change is manmade, there will be no more Category 4 storms like Irma?

There have been 97 Category 4 hurricanes since 1901. Call us cynical, but we doubt being politically correct will stop Mother Nature.

Adding insult to injury, the story appeared before the storm made landfall, before we knew if anyone would be killed, before we knew what efforts will be needed to clean up the devastation.

And before we even knew the eventual path of the hurricane.

Now is not the time to drive a liberal political agenda, but to show some human compassion.

There’s nothing more pathetic than a newspaper that refuses to admit they got a story wrong, then proceeds to dig in their heels and double-down on dumbness.

That’s exactly what the Denver Posteditorial board is now doing, because the paper totally blew a story that tried, and failed, to take down GOP Senate candidate Darryl Glenn.

Read the details on the political non-scandal turned journalism scandal here.

In this Gawd awful age of reality TV, where no one is ashamed to share their darkest secrets and everyone glorifies in their real or perceived vicitimhood, it’s no wonder the Denver Post can’t grasp the fact that some people don’t revel in their misery, or use it to get ahead.

Had Glenn told from the outset the story he is telling now and wished to keep it a secret, The Post would not have reported it.
And yet what an amazing campaign narrative it might have been. Look at what he has overcome and what he has accomplished. A champion powerlifter. An Air Force Academy graduate. A dedicated public servant.

But now voters must decide whether the latest version of the story he’s telling is another cover-up, or an epiphany spurred from controversy.

So, the Post is now attempting to blame Glenn for their own mistake. Equally worse, they actually criticized Glenn for not exploiting a private family matter, which no one with any sense would take pride in, to capitalize on for political purposes.

UPDATE: Well that was quick! The Denver Post is already out with an editorial (responding to our blog post perhaps?) about “why this matters.”

All this shows, however, is that Dean Singleton, the Post’s owner, is pulling strings from the top trying to help his buddy Michael Bennet. The campaign’s oppo is weak, and they need mileage out of this. Period. End of story.

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U.S. Senator Michael Bennet’s campaign decided to dump some of their opposition research on GOP challenger Darryl Glenn this week, and the mainstream media is handling it in a way that epitomizes their political bias.

In 2014, The Peak exposed then-Democratic Senator Mark Udall’s arrest for possession of amphetamines and a large amount of pot. Except for a small mention from Lynn Bartels, who wrote for The Denver Post at the time, the mainstream media ignored the story. Never mind that Udall was sentenced to a night in jail, six months probation and his car was permanently seized. The media turned a blind eye.

Fast-forward two years. The same media have an obsessive interest in some long-ago dropped charge, that is far less serious, involving the Republican candidate in the race. The same media that refused to cover Udall’s arrest and subsequent lies about the incident think it is a big deal that Glenn cannot remember a charge that resulted in no arrest, no jail time, no fine and no criminal record.

In the case of Republican the charges were dropped, yet it is still “news.” No so for the Democrat.

This has appeared as a scandal today in both The Post and The Colorado Springs Gazette, which each chose to ignore Udall’s misrepresentation of serious criminal charges when he was 20.

If that’s not evidence of media hypocrisy and a double standard that favors left wing candidates what is?

Coal is evil, until we are no longer mining it and collecting the millions of dollars it produces for schools and communities, then it’s even more evil. That’s according to Denver Postreporter Bruce Finley, trying to have it both ways, as usual, in a story hyped with purple prose and gasping that one missed tax payment by Peabody has catapulted a community into turmoil.

Because the entire coal mining industry has collapsed, Finley claims, Oak Creek didn’t get a $1.2 million tax payment in June robbing the citizens of fire protection, a library, school for 325 children, and a cemetery.

We can’t make this stuff up.

We’re not mocking any hardship that communities would suffer if coal is put out of business, for that is a very real and troubling concern.

But, we are contemptuous of the greenies, whose propaganda Finley gleefully prints without question, to drive coal out of business.

He writes of the hardship, seemingly with pity, but then switches gears quicker than a race car driver to tell us that coal companies should be paying even more royalties.

“That means Colorado taxpayers and coal-impacted communities are getting less than they should at a time when the communities need it the most,” Earthjustice attorney Ted Zukoski said.

Yes, this is the same Earthjustice that wants all coal “kept in the ground” and all coal jobs eliminated.

And where will communities then get the money it needs for schools, libraries and fire protection? They could care less.

Give us your money, go out of business, that’s the environmentalist’s motto.

Good news for the folks over at the Denver Post. It turns out that the company is laying off 20 percent of its newsroom staff because the company is making tons of money every year and is flush with cash.

According to bitter staffers sources,Westword reports, the paper is actually cutting staff to increase quality and raising subscription prices to fleece readers before they shut down the print product entirely, sometime in the next decade.

The theory goes something like this: Alden (Global Capitol) feels confident that print will be going away over the course of the next ten years or so, and given this eventuality, the only logical course of action is to squeeze every last dime from the operation while such coins are still available. That includes jacking up subscription prices on a regular basis, even if doing so hurts overall circulation, as a way of getting maximum profit out of longtime subscribers (the paper’s core audience) for as long as possible before eliminating print entirely.

There’s no need for a long-term strategy if the folks at Alden think print is already in a death spiral, our sources argue — especially given that the Post has been on sale since September 2014 without a buyer pulling the trigger.

Oh wait, our bad. Sources are calling Westword with theories, not actual facts on what’s happening at the Post.

We’ll stand by our theory, which is that the Post is laying off employees cause it’s not making money, and looking for a buyer but not finding one, cause it’s not making money.

We’re not judging, because there’s no shame in not making money. Just ask Bernie Sanders, he’s run an entire campaign based on that theory.

We ride herd pretty tough on Denver Post reporters on a regular basis, but they’re having a rough time of it lately so today we’re wearing wrinkled khaki clothing in solidarity with those ink-stained wretches as they struggle through yet another round of buyouts.

About 20 percent of the newsroom is targeted for elimination, specifically older folks who have a lot of experience, we believe the term is age discrimination, who will likely see only one week’s pay for every year they have dedicated to their newspaper.

Like most sharp paper cuts, this one drew blood with reporters tweeting out some of the details through social media. It’s what they’ve been trained to do with the advent of the internet, and we are proud of them for not faltering in their jobs, even as they risk losing it.

This isn’t the first slap in the face reporters have suffered recently. Editor Greg Moore unexpectedly stepped down a few months ago after 14 years running the show, and Lynn Bartels was one of many reporters who took the buyout last summer. In-house editorials have been cut back, and reporters were told earlier this month that their work load is increasing and bylines will be counted on an abacus.

Those who are left behind after the buyout are expected to meet new quotas, one to two stories a day, which includes blog posts, briefs, or contributing to another writer’s work.

This will not affect the quality of the stories, reporters were told with a straight face.

No word on whether the tweets announcing buyouts will be included in this new byline count.

Even worse, Meyer reveals that his partisanship occurred when he was the Denver Post‘s reporter covering education issues in Douglas County in 2011, when the District first launched its school choice and competition strategic plan that included 15 choice initiatives. One of those initiatives was this voucher program that Meyer clearly despises.

In his recent piece, Meyer claimed that “years ago when the district took its first steps toward creating the voucher program, school board members and administrators were cautious and secretive.”

We asked a source close to Douglas County whether this was accurate and were told it was not. In fact, Meyer seems to be latching on to union rhetoric of “secrecy”. Instead, here’s what we were told about this so-called secrecy. The DougCo School Choice Task Force repeatedly met publicly in shaping the voucher program, but no one remembers Meyer ever bothering to make the trip to Castle Rock for those meetings. Later, after the Board’s pubic vote in March 2011 (which Meyer attended), many District officials chose not to avail themselves to Meyer for now-obvious reasons – his reporting was biased, inaccurate, unprofessional, and driven by a pro-union agenda, which he fully revealed in this opinion piece.

It’s noteworthy that district officials have been interviewed by Meyer’s Denver Post successors on the education beat, whose reporting has been more balanced. Meyer’s July 4th piece makes clear that DougCo’s lack of confidence in Meyer’s objectivity, fairness, and journalistic professionalism was well-placed.

As for calling the voucher program a ruse? Tell that to the parents who are trying to find the best education for their children. Meyer can flap about DougCo seeing through his own pro-union “ruse” and knocking his ego down a few pegs all he wants, the fundamentals are this: Douglas County created a program that would have allowed parents to choose a school that best fits their kids. The Supreme Court said it violated the racist and bigoted Blaine Amendment. The supporters of this program are planning to appeal the decision to once and for all kill Blaine.

Meyer can claim victory here if he wants to side with those (read: unions and Blaine Amendment supporters) who would deny families educational choice. He has every right to pick a side, just as we have every right to mock him for it.

The Denver Post editorial board is on a roll these days and we can’t help but delight in it. The Post‘s latest tome called out eco-terrorists Wild Earth Guardians for being disingenuous, and the paper is spot on. Wild Earth Guardians’ spokesman Jeremy Nichols told the Post‘s Mark Jaffe the following:

“We want to have an honest discussion about the impact of coal and find a way to come together to figure out the next step.”

“Why, of course. A group militantly opposed to fossil-fuel production files a lawsuit challenging the validity of a coal mine plan approved years ago — but does so only to provoke an ‘honest discussion.’ Please.”

Carroll also dug up this gem that Nichols wrote way back when (when donors weren’t fleeing like Wild Earth Guardians had Ebola):

“As communities in Colorado and elsewhere have learned well. It’s not enough to make oil and gas development cleaner or safer. For the sake of our health, our quality of life, and our future, it simply has to be stopped.”

Carroll should be commended for sniffing out the BS in Nichols’ clearly false claim that Nichols just wants to have a conversation.

But, that actually brings up another question. Why didn’t the original article’s author, Mark Jaffe, push back against Nichols when Nichols first asserted that he just wants to have an honest discussion? And, isn’t that the real reason that the right feels like the mainstream media is biased? It’s because the mainstream media isn’t asking the tough questions of left-leaning groups or revealing that it’s asking the tough questions in its writing the same way it does for right-leaning groups.

Despite the rancor and vitriol in Thompson and Jeffco School Districts, it would appear that the respective boards might just be doing right by kids. At least, that’s the Denver Post Editorial Board’s take. An editorial appearing in this morning’s paper praises two boards for funding charter schools at the same level as other public schools in the districts.

Here’s what the Post found praiseworthy:

“Not only do [charter schools] usually have to locate and acquire their facilities, but they frequently do not share equally in voter-approved mill levy overrides, aka tax hikes. And this can amount to a funding disadvantage of hundreds of dollars per student compared to other district schools.

This month, to their credit, two more school districts — Jefferson County and Thompson in Loveland — moved to equalize the funding, at least in terms of the mill levy….

…It’s easy to forget amid the fog of rhetoric from those opposing equal funding that charters are public schools, too. After nearly a quarter century of experience, their equal treatment should not be controversial.”

There have been rumors that the Douglas County teachers union has been trying to get it’s collective sh!t together for a while, but a recent press release announcing that they have hired Strategies 360 makes the rumors somewhat more substantial. The press release notes:

“The Douglas County Federation hired Strategies 360 (S360) to conduct an anonymous survey of teachers and staff during the 2014/­2015 school year.”

In case you are not familiar with Strategies 360, the firm also represents the Jefferson County Education Association as noted in this Chalkbeat article which quotes Lynea Hansen, employee of Strategies 360, as a spokesperson for the union. In short, Douglas County teachers want to import the disgusting attacks levied by the JCEA and other outside groups. In case you are not familiar with the types of racist, sexist, and just plain cruel attacks this group has engaged in, a short trip to MeanGirlz.com should suffice.

According to Complete Colorado, which broke the story, hateful and anonymous spoof accounts have put forth all sorts of racist attacks on Jeffco Chief Communications Officer Lisa Pinto, who is Hispanic, suggesting that she wants to eat burritos and guacamole. By the way, if a Republican levied these attacks, it would be a front page story (anyone remember the fried chicken debacle?). We’re looking at you, Denver Post (your lack of reporting on this is shameful). These offensive tweets were favorited and retweeted by union members, and, as a matter of fact, union members, including Colorado Education Association President Kerrie Dallman, were some of the anonymous accounts’ first followers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

This press release isn’t the first indication that the Douglas County teachers union and JCEA are working together. According to a 2015 strategy document presented by teacher Beth Low sent to the Peak by a disgruntled union member, the JCEA lists organizing meetings in DougCo as a key achievement over the past few months. See below.

Teachers should be disgruntled when they fork over their hard-earned cash and the union uses it to organize in an entirely different county. It’s noteworthy that Craig Hughes was the previous operative assigned to agitate in Douglas County. Guess that did not work out as well as planned. Douglas County has had every liberal organizer thrown its way, and apparently will have to endure this again. All we can say is get your rain slickers out, DougCo. There’s a lot of mud about to be slung your way.